May 15 - Petroglyphs & Pygmy Goats

 May 15

After the blessing of approximately two teaspoons of rain in our patch of desert the night before, the skies were clear and beautiful on Saturday morning.  We packed up and headed further north.  Since there was plenty of RV parking at the adjoining campground, we were able to hit up the Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site on the way.

Looking for even one of the promised Three Rivers - no luck!

There are over 21,000 (!!) prehistoric petroglyphs here, carved into rocky outcroppings along a low ridge.  Even the rock formations themselves are a pretty cool sight.  

After going up the ridge a bit, the designs are everywhere you turn.  To see them all you’d have to pick you way through the formations for a long time.  It was really fun to climb around and try to find more hidden designs. 

At first glance, the petroglyphs appear to be painted or drawn on with a white material, but they were actually created by scratching away the dark patina of the rocks to expose the lighter surfaces beneath.  

 

They are thought to have been left here between 900-1400 AD by the Jornada Mogollon peoples.

Could they have dreamt that someday 1951-2021 Isaacs peoples would be capturing tiny versions of their drawings in glowing palm-sized rectangles?

There’s another small flat trail that leads to excavated home sites of the ~1000 year old pueblo ruins.  The partial walls are mostly reconstructions.  

We drove on for about 3.5 hours to our next Boondockers site in Velarde, NM.  It’s an operating winery that makes non-grape fruit wines only, as well as the home of the family members who run it.  The entire thing is inside a structure that was once a prohibition-era nightclub and brothel!  

Eric, the owner, gave us a tour of the winemaking facilities just off the living room.  

We also met his menagerie, including...

These chickens and a rooster that crows WELL before sunrise.

Donald the Duck, who has to be separated from the other fowl for being a huge bully

A mama cat named Mama and her newborn kittens

Henry, Mama’s Large Adult Son

And pygmy goats!!  Three bouncing little boys, named Larry, Moe, & Curly:

 I can say with scientific authority that they are absolutely the cutest animals that have ever existed.

There are also several ducks, chickens, bunnies, and two super-sweet dogs that aren’t pictured here.  I was happier than a pig in (goat) s***!

Later Eric’s wonderful sister, Marta, poured us a wine tasting.  Mom & Dad aren’t particularly drinkers, but these were all semi-sweet to sweet and a couple had virtually no alcohol taste at all.   Mom liked the Strawberry best, Dad the Apricot, and although I like very dry wines, the Choke-Cherry has a cranberry-like bitterness that I really enjoyed.  We ended up purchasing a bottle of each.

We also got to see Eric’s adobe brick making process for the security wall he’s building around the goat enclosure.

Before retiring we chatted with our Boondocker neighbors as the sun went down.  We talked (well, I followed Henry the cat around because I’m really missing my kitties) past 8 pm, so we had PB&Js and Cheetos and mandarin oranges (meeting our recommended daily allowance of Neon Orange foodstuffs) for dinner and hit the hay.  Next - more goats and Taos, which is almost an anagram of ‘goats’!  Makes ya think...

May 14 - White Sands National Park

Friday morning I got up early for a quail-watching walk and found a couple new wildflowers in the scrub behind the campground.

Then we packed a lunch and headed to White Sands National Park!

It’s the largest gypsum dune field on Earth, formed over thousands of years after an Ice Age sea evaporated, leaving gypsum that broke down into selenium crystals.  

Gypsum stays relatively cool even in high temps.  If you dig your toes in a little, it can actually feel chilly.

It can also retain water better than most types of sand, so there are spots where the deeper layers that have absorbed water are exposed that are as hard as concrete.

We brought sleds that the campground very graciously made available for guests.  The top layer of sand was super soft so it was tough to get much speed.  Or maybe it’s our technique?

(Dad did pretty well, though)

Might be the technique.

After several slides down and climbs up, we were pooped!

We took a a break at the covered picnic tables for lunch.

Halves flipped, our liverwurst and Swiss sandwiches looked like hearts. Thanks, Mom! <3

We returned to the dunes to attempt a bit of the “Alkaline Flat” trail, which is NOT flat and is something like 5 miles of 100% dunes. We made it about 10 minutes before we realized we needed to give up our Lawrence-of-Arabia dreams — deserts be hot.

I got up to one of the higher dunes to get this 360 view before turning back.

Also, the lizards here are pure white!!  They moved way too fast for me to get a photo.

Also also we saw this beautiful blossoming cactus on the road out of the park.

On our return to the campground, we made a pit stop at the other large pistachio farm in Alamogordo, Heart of the Desert.  It’s a lot less touristy and has a beautiful patio overlooking the groves.  They also have a winery.  I got a delicious glass of Cabernet & Mom & Dad shared some delicious pistachio ice cream made with the nuts from Heart of the Desert’s crop. 

At this point Dad looked like his soul had left his body so we split back to the campground for a nice long nap.

We were going to try to cram in a trip to Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site before sundown, but Mother Nature took pity on us and sent a little dust & rain storm to keep us inside, which realistically, we probably needed.  We borrowed Happy Gilmore from the campground library and chilled for their rest of the night.

Next — Petroglyphs & (So Many) Pets!

May 13 - More VoF, Pistachio Farm, Museum of Space & Custard

The wind the night before shook us up pretty good, but we all slept well enough to get up early for another walk through the lava flow before hitting the road again.  Mom and Dad stuck to the paved path, but I picked my way around the lava ridges off and on.  Spotted a chipmunk but no rattlers!  

We found some more wildflowers growing in the formations.

And this beautiful windswept Juniper tree.

Our next stop was Alamogordo, NM, where we set up for a 2-night stay at Mountain Meadows RV Park. It’s a relaxed site, well off the highway, with really friendly management and beautiful views.  

There are wild quail skittering everywhere you look, and one of the long-term campers puts feed out for them near to where we parked, so you could see them out of our windows.  When they run across your path, it looks like someone is pulling a tiny toy bird across the ground by a string.  You can barely see their little legs move!  Also, they sound like Final Fantasy chocobos, which I loved.

We rested a bit, then went to McGinn’s Pistachio Farm for a farm tour.  With a giant concrete pistachio at their entrance, they are larger and more touristy than the other pistachio farm down the street, but their tour was fun and took you through the actual farmland on a jitney.

After the tour, I spent a little too long wine tasting in the gift shop, and we rushed to the New Mexico Museum of Space an hour before closing.  

This was the moon model behind Walter Kronkite during the moon landing broadcast.

We ended up having time to see everything we wanted to, especially because the interactive exhibits were closed due to covid and renovation.  It’s probably in dire need of it by most standards, but I was pleased to see that some of the cheesy 70s displays were still around.  They might not be very accurate but they have a certain charm.  

The most interesting segment was about Ham, the first astrochimp.  He was trained to use basic controls for his orbital launch, and the museum has his training equipment and the actual compartment he launched in on display.  

And his cute little monkey spacesuit!

Ham survived his trip in perfect health and lived out the rest of his life in the National Zoo in DC and a zoological park in NC.  He’s buried on the Museum grounds and visitors still leave bananas on his grave.

The exhibit on rocket navigation computers was really cool to look at but the science of it was far beyond our mere mortals’ comprehensions.  It’s INSANE to me that human beings can put these things together and make them do anything besides burst into a flaming tangle of wires.

The guidance system and timing mechanism of a V-2 rocket.

They also had some quirky astronaut memorabilia and sundries, like John Glenn’s EKG record from the Mercury-Atlas 6 launch and re-entry in 1962.

Lots of food...

Personal hygiene tools...

And an actual toilet from Skylab!

There was also a small but fun Star Trek exhibit with a real Tribble.

Who can forget that classic line — “Hey Scottie, zap me on up!” 

White Sands is also the site of occasional missile test launches, and while driving you’ll pass many signs warning that the main roads may be temporarily closed during launch.  Nothing while we were there, though.

We stopped for frozen custard at Caliche’s on the way down the mountain.  Mom & Dad split a plain vanilla, and I got The New Mexican sundae, topped with sweet & spicy green chile sauce and salted pecans - delicious!

 

It had been a disgustingly long time since we’d set foot in a Walmart, so we had to rectify that.

Back at the campground, I was very excited to use the shower in the private bathrooms.  The camper bathroom is excellent by RV standards, but it doesn’t allow for my typical drying method of spinning in place with my arms outstretched and going “WHOOOOOSH here comes Hurricane Reba!”

Another jam-packed day, so we settled in early.  Here’s another sunset.  You’re welcome.

Next up - White Sands!